Malema defiant after Zuma’s rebuke

ANC Youth League President Julius Malema remained defiant after being publicly rebuked by President Jacob Zuma, etv reported.

Speaking at a press conference at the ANCYL’s Limpopo conference, Malema said he would not take any personal responsibility for his remarks made on Zimbabwe last week.

He said he “can’t understand” why he was rebuked on his statements on Zimbabwe, as the views expressed was not his, but those of the ANCYL.

He also said he was shocked about the way he was rebuked in public on television by Zuma, the ANC and South African President.

Zuma said at a news conference in Durban on Saturday Malema’s conduct was “alien to the ANC”.

Zuma rebuked Malema for his insistence to sing the “shoot the boer” song, his statements about the killing of Eugene Terre’Blanche, leader of the far right Afrikaanse Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), and his intervention in the talks on Zimbabwe, as well as his attacks on journalists..

Malema this week interfered with the Zimbabwe peace process, siding with Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and verbally attacking the Zimbabwean opposition the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC).

The ANCYL conference was hotly contested on Sunday. Delegates who were forcibly removed from the conference vowed never to recognise newly elected chairman Frans Moswane, the SABC reported.

The delegates, who supported Lehlogonolo Masonga in the elective conference, said that the election of Moswane was not democratic after they were removed from the conference by police.

They have accused ANCYL president Julius Malema of orchestrating their removal to ensure that his preferred candidates were elected.

“He instructed police to take us out from the conference yesterday. We are going home because we are tired of the agendas of Malema, “ one delegate told the broadcaster.

“We are tired of the dictatorship of Malema.” Another angry delegate was quoted as saying: “We wont recognise, we don’t recognise and we will never recognise this new leader”.

Moswane was elected the new chairman of the youth league in the province.

He was due to make his first public address at the closing of the conference in Makhado.